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As academic social Q&A networking websites become more popular, scholars are increasingly using them to meet their information needs by asking academic questions. However, compared with other types of social media, scholars are less active on these sites, resulting in a lower response quantity for some questions. This paper explores the factors that help explain how to ask questions that generate more responses and examines the impact of different disciplines on response quantity.

The study examines 1,968 questions in five disciplines on the academic social Q&A platform ResearchGate Q&A and explores how the linguistic characteristics of these questions affect the number of responses. It uses a range of methods to statistically analyze the relationship between these linguistic characteristics and the number of responses, and conducts comparisons between disciplines.

The findings indicate that some linguistic characteristics, such as sadness, positive emotion and second-person pronouns, have a positive effect on response quantity; conversely, a high level of function words and first-person pronouns has a negative effect. However, the impacts of these linguistic characteristics vary across disciplines.

This study provides support for academic social Q&A platforms to assist scholars in asking richer questions that are likely to generate more answers across disciplines, thereby promoting improved academic communication among scholars.

In this paper the authors seek to understand how academic conferences [re]produce deeply embedded gendered patterns of interaction and informal norms within the business disciplines.

Drawing on Acker's (2012) established and updated theory of gendered organisations, the authors focus on the role of academic conferences in the reproduction of gendered practices in the business disciplines. The authors surveyed academics at top universities in Australia and New Zealand who had attended international conferences in their discipline area.

Academic conferences in the business disciplines communicate organisational logic and act as gendered substructures that [re]produce gendered practices, through the hierarchy of conference participation. Even in disciplinary conferences with a significant proportion of women delegates, the entrenched organisational logic is manifest in the bodies that perform keynote and visible expert roles, perpetuating the notion of the “ideal academic” as male.

The authors call for disciplinary associations to formulate an equality policy, which covers all facets of conference delivery, to which institutions must then respond in their bid to host the conference and which then forms part of the selection criteria; explicitly communicate why equality is important and what decisions the association and hosts took to address it; and develop databases of women experts to remove the most common excuse for the lack of women keynote speakers. Men, question conference hosts when asked to be a keynote speaker or panelist: Are half of the speakers women and is there diversity in the line-up? If not, provide the names of women to take your place.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First is the focus on revealing the underlying processes that contribute to the [re]production of gender inequality at academic conferences: the “how” rather than the “what”. Second, the authors believe it to be the first study to investigate academic conferences across the spectrum of business disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of school discipline in achieving academic performance. The study aims to clarify the role of permissive vis-à-vis authoritative teaching styles with an overarching hypothesis that better discipline leads to better academic performance. The authors also probe whether uniformed students have better discipline.

The authors analyse Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment data on school discipline dimensions: students listening well, noise levels, teacher waiting time, students working well, class start time. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analysis on five geographic groups established by Baumann and Winzar (2016) was applied to test for geographic differences (Europe, Americas, Far East Asia, Rest of Asia, Anglo-Saxon cluster) in school discipline. ANOVA was further used to test for school discipline and academic performance. Third, t-tests on five discipline dimensions were run to test for differences between students who wear uniforms and those who do not.

The results demonstrate differences in school discipline across five geographic clusters, with East Asia leading the way. The authors demonstrate significant differences in discipline for low, medium and high performing students. Peak-performing students have the highest level of discipline. Students wearing a uniform listen better with lower teacher waiting times.

Students peak perform when teachers create a disciplined atmosphere where students listen to teachers, where noise levels in the classroom are low and they do not have to wait to start class and teach. Good discipline allows students to work well and this ultimately leads to better academic performance. Uniforms contribute to better discipline in everyday school operations. The findings support that in general, implementing school uniforms at schools might enhance discipline and allow for better learning. The authors recommend keeping uniforms where they are already used and to consider introducing uniforms where they are not yet common.

This paper aims to study information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Compares information behaviour of British university academics in three disciplines – computer and information sciences, business/management, and English literature.

Discusses information behaviour of academics in the digital age.

English academics make higher use of printed information resources, such as text and reference books, than academics of any other discipline included in this study; they generally tended to be the least frequent users of electronic resources such as full‐text databases, indexing and abstracting databases, search engines, and internet sites. CIS academics generally tended to make greatest use of electronic‐based information resources, and the least use of print‐based information resources, and business/management academics fell somewhere in between these two disciplines. CIS academics were generally the most enthusiastic about the benefits of electronic resources, whereas English academics were the least enthusiastic about them. Nearly a quarter of English academics disagreed to some extent that electronic information was easier to use than printed resources, which might go some way to explain their lower use of electronic materials, and higher use of printed materials.

Results of the quantitative study should have been supported and substantiated by quantitative analyses. Similar studies involving users from many more disciplines could show better discipline‐wise differences in user behaviour.

This is a research paper based on a nation‐wide survey of academics in British universities.

In higher education, interdisciplinarity involves the design of subjects that offer the opportunity to experience ‘different ways of knowing’ from students’ core or preferred disciplines. Such an education is increasingly important in a global knowledge economy. Many universities have begun to introduce interdisciplinary studies or subjects to meet this perceived need. This chapter explores some of the issues inherent in moves towards interdisciplinary higher education. Definitional issues associated with the term ‘academic discipline’, as well as other terms, including ‘multidisciplinary’, ‘cross-disciplinary’, ‘pluridisciplinarity’, ‘transdisciplinarity’ and ‘interdisciplinary’ are examined. A new nomenclature is introduced to assist in clarifying the subtle distinctions between the various positions. The chapter also outlines some of the pedagogical and epistemological considerations which are involved in any move from a conventional form of educational delivery to an interdisciplinary higher education, and recommends caution in any implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum.

Global leadership is a vibrant and still emerging field of study. As scholarship grows in this area, the boundaries of the field become more defined. This has a direct impact on curriculum selection for courses and degree programs focused on global leadership. This article begins by exploring how emerging areas of study become recognized as disciplines and applies this knowledge to the global leadership discipline. We also look at doctoral-level degree programs in global leadership, comparing, and contrasting their offerings and approaches, and reflecting on global leadership doctoral education’s role in the ultimate crafting of the discipline. Finally, the curriculum strategies within the doctoral program in global leadership at Indiana Tech are discussed to illustrate the complex and multidisciplinary approach required to prepare global leadership scholars-practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what an academic discipline is and to apply and discuss this definition using facilities management as an example. The paper addresses an academic world that is facing the challenge of developing research and education in response to emerging disciplines and dealing with changes in the higher education system. Institutions are also confronted with the aim of the European Commission to “enhance the performance and international attractiveness of Europe's higher education”.

A structured framework with six criteria outlining an academic discipline was applied to describe the state of the art of facilities management on the basis of systematical literature research. A survey was conducted with 215 contributions from the European Facility Management Network (EuroFM) and additionally 41 Master theses and 25 scientific papers were studied to gain up-to-date insights.

This paper provides a methodical approach on how to analyse and describe emerging disciplines. In addition, an overview of the state of the art in facilities management is shown.

The methodological approach for the analysis of academic disciplines was tested using the example of FM. Before transferring the same methodology to other disciplines, researchers are advised to test and further develop the methodology for other disciplines.

This paper includes implications for the development and discussion of emerging disciplines in the academic world.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of academic disciplines and how they emerge.

The purpose of this paper is to: investigate the current state of intellectual capital (IC) as an academic discipline, and explore the impact of IC on the state of practice.

The most influential articles published in the Journal of Intellectual Capital were identified. Analysis of their cited and citing works was done.

The IC discipline: first, successfully disseminates its knowledge beyond the English-language world but ignores research published in languages other than English; second, has higher self-citation rates; third, uses books for the development of its theoretical foundation; fourth, successfully converts experiential knowledge into academic knowledge; fifth, exerts a limited yet potentially increasing practical impact; and sixth, is at the theoretical consolidation stage of pre-science and is progressing toward becoming a reference discipline. No anomalies in the development of the IC discipline were observed.

IC researchers should pay more attention to works published in non-English journals. Given the status of IC as a professional discipline, they should continue using non-peer reviewed sources to convert experiential knowledge into academic knowledge. They also need to promote their research far beyond the traditional IC domain.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first empirical analysis of the IC discipline from the reference discipline perspective.

Efforts to apply discipline in an academic organization are difficult at best, and seemingly impossible in situations where the impetus for a discipline response is unnacceptable performance. It is often postulated that tenure represents a significant barrier to the application of discipline in an academic organization. Reasonable access to discipline actions cannot, however, be viewed as an independent aspect of the academic organization. Rather, such access must be viewed as one of the many interactive attributes that, in total, serve to define the organization. Justifiable access to discipline actions can be expected only as the academic organization begins to meld these many and often disparate attributes into a cohesive statement of the organization′s definition and role. Identifies underlying assumptions necessary for the development of such strategies.

The overall aim of this paper was to examine the impact of the Australian research assessment exercise on the research approaches (positivist/non-positivist) favoured by accounting disciplines in Australia. Our key research question examined how the outputs and foci of research in elite accounting disciplines changed over a 16-year period. Our analysis was informed by Bourdieu's notions of academic elitism and symbolic violence.

We analysed all papers published in 20 major accounting journals across a 16-year period by Australian accounting disciplines that were highly rated in the research assessment exercise. We also compared our results from this group against two case study accounting disciplines that were not rated as “world class”.

Our key finding is that the introduction of a research assessment exercise in Australia has resulted in research outputs of elite accounting disciplines over this period being increasingly focused on positivist rather than non-positivist research. Our findings evidence a narrowing of accounting disciplines' research agendas and foci across the period.

Our findings highlight a considerable narrowing of the research agenda and paradigms in accounting disciplines that is not in the public interest. Our findings also have implications for the literature on academic elitism. The narrowing of the research agenda and greater foci on positivist research exhibited in our findings demonstrates the role of dominant elites in controlling the research agenda through a research assessment exercise.

A practical implication is that proper research, regardless of the approach used, must be appropriately recognised and accepted by Accounting Disciplines, not ostracised or discouraged. Research implications are the breadth of accounting research should be celebrated and concentration eschewed. Australian accounting discipline leaders should not fall for the illusion that the only good research is that which is published in a small number of North American positivist journals.

Our findings provide insights into Bourdieu's work through demonstrating how dominant players have successfully exploited an external regulatory mechanism, a research assessment exercise, to strengthen their position within a field and exert control over the research agendas of accounting disciplines. Previous work by Bourdieu has not directly examined how actors utilise these outside forces as instruments for shaping their own field.